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“A perfectly tuned conversation is a vision of sanity, a reassurance that you’re a right sort of person and that all is right with the world.” – Deborah Tannen
BRAIN WAVES
The need for speed. Ever watch an informative video or listen to a fascinating podcast *ahem* at double speed? No need to feel guilty. A study from April suggests you can learn just as much in half the time. Researchers had people watch a lecture video at normal speed, 1.5x speed, and 2x speed, then tested them on the lecture a week later. They found no difference in how much information people retained (although performance did decline beyond 2x speed). So the next time you’re short on time and need to blaze through your favorite podcast, we promise we won’t hold it against you. Probably.
Gift of the gab. You know when you just naturally click with someone? Researchers from Dartmouth College have a clue as to why. They recorded pairs of people chatting for ten minutes, and measured the time between each person's response to their partner. In the conversations that participants enjoyed more, there was a shorter gap between one person talking and the other responding. In other words, people tended to feel the warmth of the conversation more when their partner responded more swiftly. That said, your rapid repartee can be a double-edged sword if you respond too quickly and your conversation partner thinks you’re being rude. In this week’s Hidden Brain episode, titled “Why Conversations Go Wrong,” linguist Deborah Tannen explains why some conversation styles conflict. So the next time you chitty chat, jibber jabber, or yackety yak with your friends, try to pay attention to whether the two of you are in sync.
We make choices every day, and we like to believe we make those choices freely. But psychologist Eric Johnson says there’s a design behind the way choices are presented to us, and this invisible architecture can influence decisions large and small. Listen to learn more.
ON THE HIDDEN BRAIN PODCAST
Feb 28: Mind Reading 2.0: Why Conversations Go Wrong: We talk with linguist Deborah Tannen about how our conversational styles can cause unintended conflicts, and what we can do to communicate more effectively with the people in our lives.
March 7: Nobel prize-winning economist Abhijit Banerjee has spent a lifetime asking a deceptively simple question: How do you know that's true? His approach to public policy, through experiments and real-world outcomes, has revolutionized the practice of economics.
ON THE MY UNSUNG HERO PODCAST
March 1: After eight-year-old Wendy McDowell inexplicably finds herself alone in an airport, a stranger takes charge.
Don’t forget to send us the story of your unsung hero! Record a voice memo on your phone and email it to myunsunghero@hiddenbrain.org.
MIND GAMES
I left my campsite and hiked south for 3 miles. Then I turned east and hiked for 3 miles. I then turned north and hiked for 3 miles, at which time I came upon a bear inside my tent eating my food! What color was the bear?
LAST WEEK’S PUZZLE
In the given picture, we have used matchsticks to create squares. You are allowed to move just two matchsticks and must form seven squares. You cant overlap the matches and you are not allowed to break them. Also, like you can see in the picture, all squares must be closed.
The answer: We have moved two matchsticks in the picture and colored them red so you can understand what happened. Thus we have five 1x1 square, one 2x2 square and one 3x3 square.
FROM THE TWITTERATI…
A MOMENT OF JOY
This is an excellent spoof of podcast credits.
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